Mittwoch, 14. November 2012

It was a blast from the past when this Saturday my 10 months old
daughter pulled out a binder (yes, one of those things Romney talked about …)
that had a red “ozone devil” on it (see picture). Back in the mid 1980s,
putting these “devils” on spraying cans powered by ozone layer destroying “f-gases” - CFCs - was one of the first ever
Greenpeace activities I engaged in. Then, the hole in the ozone layer was still
new and big news.

It amuses me now to think how daring it felt at 14 to be walking into
supermarkets and - by spreading these stickers - warn consumers about the
disastrous impact of their product choice. I know my parents were a tad nervous
about it. And I wonder what will be the issue my daughter cares about when she
is 14? Certainly not CFCs or HCFCs, gladly, as these will be history in the
developed world by then.

25 years ago, in 1987, the Montreal Protocol to protect the
Ozone layer was agreed. It is a remarkable agreement. After NASA confirmed the
dire state of the ozone layer, the Protocol was negotiated at amazing speed. It
has some real teeth and has had an impact many global environmental agreements
can only dream of. This success is not complete though. And, sadly, it seems to
have created a – false – belief that the ozone layer is a problem that is
already solved.

Far from it – it will take until 2050 for the ozone hole to make a
partial recovery and it will never return to its preindustrial state. And when
HCFCs and CFCs get replaced with HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons), their replacement
is fuelling another major environmental problem: climate change. HFCs are toxic
chemicals and are extremely potent greenhouse gases. They are up to several thousand
times more powerful than CO2, the main climate damaging gas everybody
talks about. Shockingly, at their current rate of growth (mainly in refrigeration
and air conditioning), HFCs could have the same climate impact as up to a third
of total carbon emissions by 2050.

So as we celebrate the 25th
anniversary of the Montreal Protocol, governments have their work cut out for
them. The Montreal Protocol could have achieved much more to protect the ozone
layer and the climate had it forced the world to take the direct leap to ozone
friendly natural
refrigerants. Instead, since its inception the Protocol has been overly
influenced by the likes of Honeywell and Dupont, who have successfully lobbied
for the widespread adoption of HCFCs and HFCs.

Natural refrigerants need to become the world´s choice if we are to
truly get rid of the these fluorinated devils. We at Greenpeace developed and
successfully commercialized the truly clean 'Greenfreeze'
hydrocarbon technology in domestic refrigeration in the 1990s already.
Greenfreeze technology is now being used in 650 million fridges around the
world. And other sectors have successfully followed the natural refrigerants
path. Indeed, as we show in our new Cool Technologies
report sustainable long-term solutions are available and feasible for most applications. We can do without HFCs as well.

At the 25 years mark, therefore, the Montreal
Protocol must not rest on its laurels. Instead, it must urgently decide to eliminate
all HFCs by 2020 (working together with the climate convention, the UNFCCC). To
continue the fight against the ozone devils my colleagues Ozone hero Janos Mate and Paula Tejon, are at the
Montreal Protocol meeting in Geneva this week. As I was trying to prevent my
daughter from chewing on the ozone devil binder this weekend – facing fierce
resistance - I was thinking of them.I
was thinking about how grateful I am to have colleagues given their all for my
daughters future.

Samstag, 3. November 2012

Removing harmful subsidies for the sake of sustainable development - the English version of a short piece on harmful subsidies in WEITBLICK

Whether nationally or globally: the numbers are so shockingly high, they are hard to imagine. Nine billion euros, for instance, are annually granted to German industry in savings on electricity costs. Worldwide, subsidies are estimated at a whopping one trillion US dollars – subsidies that harm the climate, the people and the environment, not helping deliver a better future. When governments declare that they have no money for urgent investments to bring about a social and ecological economy, this is more than hypocritical.

The money is there – it is just being given to the wrong people for the wrong things. For example, the millionaire-family Vidal from Spain uses illegal fishing practices to empty our oceans, yet at the same time pockets € 12.5 million in EU fisheries subsidies. Or how about the rich producers and users of fossil fuels (the Exxon Mobils of this world), who, with an estimated $ 750 billion per year, collect the lion's share of harmful subsidies worldwide. According to the International Energy Agency, only eight percent of fossil fuel subsidies reach the poor.

There is another way. Costa Rica has introduced a tax on oil, whilst reducing and redeploying its fossil fuel subsidies. Ethiopia has abolished subsidies for fossil fuels – and thereby reduced the import of kerosene (with a positive impact on the public purse). Why is it then, that not more countries follow these examples? The answer is easy to give and hard to overcome: It's a question of power. Fishing and oil barons have undue influence over our governments. So they manage to defend their privileges and shift the social and environmental costs of their actions onto the community - onto all of us.

In Germany, the overall social and environmental costs of electricity from lignite and coal-fired power plants, for example, add up to 15.6 and 14.8 cents per kilowatt hour respectively. For nuclear energy it's even more – at least 16.4 cents per kilowatt hour are due. Yet for one kilowatt hour of wind power, the accrued costs are just 8.1 cents. Nonetheless, powerful energy companies manage to ensure that the discussion on the streets and in the tabloid press is about supposedly "expensive" green energy. A debate that completey ignores the fact that the true - social and environmental - costs of electricity are not paid for by those powerful companies, but by all of us.

Besides transparency, clear policy objectives (such as the elimination of harmful subsidies by 2020 at the very latest) and a tax system in which social and environmental "bads" are charged adequately, one thing is needed above all: In order to change the current subsidy and tax policy, the power of large polluter-companies must be broken.

Who is being supported to do what is a question of democracy. Only when the people, not the industrial lobby, determine the actions of our rulers, will the billions that flow today into the destruction of our future, finally fund poverty reduction and environmental protection.

Introducing myself, Daniel Mittler

I am the Political Director of Greenpeace International, heading their Political and Business Unit. I am leading a global team of specialists working on issues ranging from protecting the High Seas to disrupting dirty business models and toxic trade deals. We are responsible for internal strategy advice to campaigns and external representation at global political and business fora. I am a member of the Global Program management team and from September 2014 to June 2015 also managed the Actions and Science Units (two of my favourite parts of Greenpeace). I have also served on the senior management team of Greenpeace’s global forest campaign and on the European Executive Committee.

From 1997-2000 I was a researcher at the Bartlett School of Planning at University College London. I was looking at achieving sustainabilty in cities; mainly because I love cities. The year before, I was living in Bonn serving my country by writing press releases for the youth-wing of Friends of the Earth Germany (BUNDjugend).

Berlin, where I have lived - with a couple of breaks (in Oxford and Amsterdam) - since 2000, is now the (other) place I call home. To be precise: Kreuzberg.

I love kayaking, reading, going to the theatre and cinema, hiking, music (I still try to play the cello) - all the usual middle class stuff. I have a way too loud laugh, but at least I manage to laugh. What really excites me is making the world at the same time a more just and greener place - and creating spaces where people can get active. So, do something!